Hoops Tonight - Lakers sign Dennis Schroder Reaction, + NBA Power Rankings: Luka Doncic makes Dallas Mavericks an NBA Finals contender

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eight line. In Tennessee visit www dot one eight gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to hoops tonight, presented by Fanduel here at the volume. Happy Friday again everyone. You might notice that I have a different haircut than

I did for my last Friday show. That's because I actually recorded Friday's show yesterday, expecting to have the day off and of course I was getting on top of some stuff, just running some errands and got away from my phone for a couple of hours and next thing you know, there's a new Los Angeles laker coming hand in hand with report from Jovon Buha. That's strongly hints that Russell Westbrook will still be a laker going into

training camp next week. Not just a Laker but the third best point guard on the roster for day one. Super Interesting. I am not gonna go for very long today, just about ten fifteen minutes. I have a couple of different angles that I want to look at here. You know, uh, if you guys remember from the earlier video this afternoon when we were talking about the Dallas Mavericks, and then I also tweeted some stuff earlier today after Germany lost

in the semi finals of Eurobasket. I talked about how I thought Dennis Shrewder was an excellent fit for the Dallas Mavericks and some specific needs that they had on their roster. And I've been thinking a lot about it because Dallas is kind of system and we talked about

this a lot earlier today. So I encourage you to watch that Dallas Mavericks Video, but they are a isolation in pick and roll offense entirely, and it's very similar to the two thousand eighteen rockets, where they just space you out and they need guys to create advantage with a live dribble. And their whole system last year was built on having three guards that could do it, you know, Jalen Brunson, Spencer Dinwoodie and Luca Don Chech. They lost

jalen Brunson didn't replace him. I thought Dennis shooter was the obvious fit there. So I was kind of already in a Dennis shooter frame of mind today and then next thing you know he's a Laker and there's a lot to get into their first of all, he is a starting level NBA point guard. Before we go any further into anything, he's a starting level NBA point guard.

That automatically makes him a great signing for the Lakers because, for any of you who have listened to my show over the course of this summer, I've talked about how the Lakers have very few rotation level NBA players. Jovan Buja in his article talked about how there was a starting battle, you know, like for a starting position on the roster between Austin Reeves and UH Lonnie Walker, right, or Damian Jones and Thomas Bryant from the Washington Wizards

last year, right. And I was sitting there thinking I'm like and I like Austin Reeves and I think he will one day, very soon, be a starting level NBA two guard, but I don't quite think he's there yet. And Thomas Bryant and and Uh Damian Jones are both pretty solid. I'm not a huge fan of Lonnie Walker, but I was sitting there thinking I'm like all four

of those guys. Though, even with as much as I like Austin Reeves, all four of those guys would have been out of the rotation entirely, not just the starting lineup, out of the rotation for the Boston Celtics, for the Golden State Warriors, probably for the Milwaukee Bucks too, probably for the L A clippers too, when they're healthy and

at at full strength. And I'm sitting there thinking, like, the Lakers just don't have a ton of rotation level playoff players and with the Patrick Beverley trade they got one. And now you could say like Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Patrick Beverley. I'm not a huge fan of Russ for all the reasons that we've talked about in the past, but I theoretically, if he figures out some role player things,

he could become that fourth guy. Well, you just signed that fourth guy, so at the very least it's an influx of talent to a team that doesn't have the luxury of turning away talent forfeit. They have to try to make it work with Dennis shrouder because they simply don't have enough good basketball players to do anything else. Now, before we talk about what he's gonna do for the Lakers, I want to talk about his strengths and weaknesses in general,

because I actually was ironic. I was sitting there today and I was like man, in that Dallas Mavericks video that I recorded, I talked a lot about Dennis Schroder and what I expected him to do for the Mavs, but I never actually talked about his strengths and weaknesses. And I obviously covered him with Raj and with the state of the Lakers show during the two thousand one

season when he was a Laker. So obviously I'd know as much about him as anybody else these days, and he's got a couple of really good strengths and then he's got some pretty big weaknesses. Right, he can get to the rim with ease as good as any guard in the league, especially against bigs on switches, which is

a unique thing, especially in a playoff environment. Theoretically, it didn't really manifest because he had a pretty rough series against Phoenix, but that more had to do with his jump shot, which we'll get to Um rim pressure, and we talked about this a lot on the show. Rim

pressure is an immensely important aspect of basketball. There are all sorts of positives that come from it, the first of which is collapsing the defense, and when you collapse the defense, that just simply creates openings on the perimeter for players to either knock down spot at threes or

to attack closeouts. That's a huge positive. And when you get really good players that are gifted with rim pressure, and you saw this a lot with Lebron James and Dennis shorter together in teams tend to abandon everything on the perimeter and just pack the paint because they know that's your bread and butter. In addition to that, rim pressure, even when you miss layups. Leads to benefits in offensive rebounding. So, for instance, the Lakers will probably play big most of

the season. That means you're gonna see a lot of Damien Jones and Anthony Davis, a lot of Damien Jones and Lebron, a lot of Thomas Bryant Anthony Davis, a lot of those two bigs and Lebron. Right. You're gonna just see huge front lines from the Lakers all season. If Dennis shooter gets by his man and gets to the Rim and draws the shot blocker over and he throws some crazy looping scoop shot up and he misses

it high off the glass, WHO's there waiting? One of those massive bigs who's defender just stepped over to help on Dennis Schroeder, there's there's just a monumental, uh positive impact that comes with rim pressure. Even when I was talking about Russ and all of the negative things that he brought this year, his rim pressure was his major positive contribution. That is the thing even that Russell Westbrook

fans clung to as his big positive impact. And there is no doubt that there is a positive impact that comes with rim pressure on the other side of the floor. Dennis shooter is an excellent point of attack defender. He's aggressive, he applies ball pressure, he makes people feel uncomfortable. He's a competitor. He brings it every night. He slides his

feet and he keeps his man in front. He did that all year long with the Lakers and it's a huge part of why they were such a good defense even without Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the floor. If you remember that year, the Lakers finished with the number one defense in the league and didn't have a

single player make the all defense team. They made they were the number one defense in the league and they didn't have Lebron James and Anthony Davis in the lineup for most of that season, and a huge part of that was contribution from the role players. contavious called we pope had a great defensive season, Kyle Kuzman had a

great defensive season and Dennis Shrewder. With all of the lineup turnal turmoil, with everything that was going wrong with Lebron James and Anthony Davis, Dennis Shrewder was there every night defending his ass off and leading that team to win just Enough Basketball Games to cloud a playoff spot so that Lebron James and Anthony Davis could come back, obviously for nothing as a result of of Anthony Davis's

groin injury. But he has two elite strengths. He can get to the Rim as well as any guard in the league and he can defend at the point of attack as well as most of the guards in the league. That automatically makes you a huge net positive over any other option that the Lakers have in the backcourt, at least among you know, again again, I like Austin Reeves. I think he's gonna play a lot this year. I think he will be a long term to guard in this league that will play big minutes for good teams.

But he's young. He doesn't shoot the ball well enough right now. He's got a couple of things he's got to work out right outside of that, it's a lot of young, athletic role players that are pretty, you know, up and down and not gonna be dependable and reliable in an NBA season. So what what? Moving to his weakness is really quick. He's a blow average shooter, both in pull up situations and in catching shoot situations. And

the last two seasons. Uh. In each season he shot about four pull up jumpers per game and in both seasons shot just under that's below average. Catching shoot threes, he shot Um in the low thirties and he did shoot on pull up threes with the Lakers. I was shocked when I saw that because the eye tests made

it look worse. I think a huge part of that is when Dennis shooter comes off of screens, it doesn't look like dame lillard coming over the top of the screen and shooting a crazy pull up three with a defender draped on his backside. It's them going way under the screen on Dennis and him stopping and shooting a set shot. And just in terms of the eye test, when you see players taking like completely wide open jumpers and only shooting for it comes off as less impactful

than on high volume. And in that Laker season I think he was taking fewer than two pull up threes per game. So jump shooting can be a problem and especially in that Phoenix Sun series, Dennis shooter got to the point where he lost confidence in his jump shot to such a great extent that he was pump faking at ghosts and Lebron would like driving to traffic and

kick the Dennis. He'd have ten ft between him and the defender and he pump fake and then kind of like wait for the defender to close out and try to drive by him, and so his jump shot is absolutely an issue. He's also a little bit undersized and when you're dealing with UH issues like that, it can really rear its ugly head in the playoffs when teams

start attacking matchups. If you face the L A clippers, you can bet your ask that Paul George and Kawhile Leonard Are gonna be hunting a guy like Dennis shrewder to get two spots on the floor where they can get to their post games, specifically midrange pull ups, you know, out of the post, like over their left shoulder and right shoulder, things like that. So obviously he's got some glaring weaknesses, but he's got some big strengths and again the Lakers don't have the luxury being able to turn

away talent. They have to take him because this is not a very talented roster at this point. What do you use him with the with the Lakers? How do you use him now? My guests from the reporting from Joe Ban Buja is. They'RE gonna probably end up starting either Austin Reeves or Lonnie Walker at the two, play big, with probably Damien Jones at the center, next to Lebron James and Anthony Davis, and Patrick Beverley at center, or Russell Westbrook at center, if he manages to convince Darvin

him to start. What I would do if I was coaching the Lakers, I would go all in on ball pressure in the backcourt. People are gonna BE UH concerned about size with this concept, because what I'm advocating for is Patrick beverlely, it's at point guard, and Dennis Shrewder at the two or who gives? WHO gives a ship with the what the positions are called? I would start them both in the backcourt. Now you're concerned would be size,

and I get that, but a couple of things. First of all, Patrick Beverley rebounds very well for his position. Both Dennis Shrewder and Patrick Beverley are very scrappy and make it difficult on players that try to punish them with their size. And most importantly, and those of you have been listening to the show for a long time will pick this up, right away. Aggregate size is what

matters the most. It's far more important for the total lineup size to be able to fulfill all the size responsibilities on the floor than for one specific position to be an issue. If you are playing big and you have Lebron James at the three and Anthony Freak and Davis, one of the best defensive players of all time, at the four, and you have Thomas Bryant or Damian Jones, I think it'll be Damian Jones at the center position, you're so big in a front court that you can

get away with some size issues in the backcourt. Defensive Rebounding. Yes, they're gonna have have situations where they're boxing a guy out and a guy can jump over the top, but you have so much size elsewhere compensating there it helps. Screaming the amount of post mismatches when you have that kind of if they try to post up Patrick Beverley, you've got so much length and athleticism on your back line that you can afford to double team him out

of that because you can recover out of it. It's aggregate size, it's aggregate athleticism, it's aggregate defensive talent that can cover for those things. So I would lean heavily on Patrick Beverley and Dennis shooter together on the back line or on the front line. Excuse me, uh, in the backcourt, ball pressuring making people feel uncomfortable from the

opening tip. Imagine a world where you're throwing up the opening tip and from the very first possession Patrick Beverley and Dennis shrewder are up in you and ball pressure making everything difficult, picking you up as soon as you cross the half court line and, most importantly, funneling you when you ball pressure. It automatically the the first instinct of every ball handler against ball pressure is to drive past them, and that's how you're taught to deal with it.

You know, make a quick move and go around them. If they if they go around them, there's this massive front line in Lebron James, Anthony Davis and Damian Jones waiting behind them to clean things up. It's very similar to what they did in the season when they chase teams off the line and tried to funnel them in to their shot blockers. So I would start Patrick Beverley

and Dennis shorter together. I'd go all in on ball pressure, funneling things into the paint, give up the mid range pull ups, give up the floaters and things along those lines, and I think you could functionally put together a dominant defense, because that's too excellent point of attack defenders. Lebron James, who is, when he's engaged, as one of the best

back line defenders in the league. Anthony Davis is even way better than Lebron, and then you have Damian Jones, who's a solid starter in this league as an athletic, rim protecting, rim running type of center. That's what I would do. Secondly, the Lakers did not have a legit backup shot creator. If you guys remember, that's why I was a big fan of the buddy healed trade. I wanted them to go after buddy heal because I was scared that Lebron would be the only guy on the

team that could create his own shot. Anthony Davis has proven that he can do when he's making jump shots. He can do some stuff as an isolation player out of the post, but it's not like he's bringing the ball up the floor and running your offense for you.

And Patrick Beverley is not up to that task. And, as we talked about, if you guys remember in the Lakers video I broke down with the numbers, Russell Westbrook was the worst volume ball handler in all of basketball last year, like, if you actually looked in the total picture of his pull up, jump shooting, his rim finishing, his catching, shoot shooting, like everything that he did on the basketball court as a primary shot creator, he was one of the worst. So he's not up to that

task either. So bringing Dennis Shrewder in as a legit secondary shot creator who can be a second side creator on the floor with Lebron and help run the offense when Lebron's on the bench, that would go a long

way towards adding the shot creation that the Lakers need. So, in summation, even though I thought he was a better fit for Dallas, even though I'm kind of stunned that Dallas couldn't pull this off, and even though I thought Dennis probably should have picked Dallas because it was his best opportunity to put up great numbers and help get a long term deal next summer, I'm glad that the Lakers got him because they just need talent. He fits

that talent. It'll be a very unorthodox team. They'll be tiny, in the back court huge in the front court. Their spacing is gonna be shipped, but what else is new at the Lakers have had terrible spacing for years now. The reality is is any influx of talent is a positive for the Lakers, so I'm looking at it as

a positive for the Lakers. So, moving onto the rust side of this, Joe Ban Bouha's report, which is in line with everything that we've heard in recent weeks, is that the Lakers aren't leaning towards keeping Russ and the main reason why there is the the the legitimization that the Lakers are using is they're keeping an eye on next summer because they're gonna have this cap space, which completely discounts the fact that they'd have to release roster control.

Of like if they wanted to hit thirty five million, which is what they're shooting for, and in order to hit that thirty five million number next summer, they would have to cut ties with every single player on the roster not named Lebron James and Anthony Davis. That means every one of their draft picks from this year they'd have to let go. So you know, if you're into if you think Cole Spider is a good basketball player,

say goodbye to Cole Spider. If you think Max Christie is a good basketball player, say goodbye to Max Christie. You've invested in Austin Reeves, say goodbye to Austin Reeves. You'd have to say goodbye to all of those guys to get to that thirty five million mark. There's no guarantee that Kyrie is coming, because why would kyrie leave if they have a good season with the nets? If they have a good season, he's staying. Okay, yeah, Chris Middleton could be a free agent. What makes you think

he's leaving the bucks? Andrew Wiggins could be a free agent. What makes you think he's leaving the war? There's just not a lot of good options and betting on that I thought didn't make a ton of sense. It was the obvious, like recoil defense from the Lakers brass and I knew it was coming as soon as they sent Ramona shelburn on Zach Low, because Ramona shelburn has always been like the advocate for Genie Buss in the media.

She always goes out and does some sort of big appearance on one of the major basketball shows when it's time to explain why Genie Buss is doing something, and she was all in on that. We're looking at next summer and Oh, these trades don't make us a contender.

where I disagreed with that so much is the simple fact that the one time that things worked out for the Lakers, if you look back at this whole era, the Lebron James and Anthony Davis era, it's been a disaster for the most part, but there was one season where it worked out. What happened, guys? That was the season when the third star didn't work out. That was the season when they just had a bunch of role players around Lebron James and Anthony Davis. That's the one

thing we have concrete proof works in the NBA. Lebron James, Anthony Davis, lots of good role players. So even though I understand the hesitancy to take on long term money, even though I understand the hesitancy to give up a draft pick in nine that you might be able to flip for a star in the future, even though I understand that, the reality is is if you could flip those picks and Russ for role players, the likes of

boy on bogdanovitch or Malik Beasley or Rudy Gay. That brings in role players that are proven to succeed alongside Lebron James and Anthony Davis. That is a proven formula, and so what I don't understand about that method is you have Lebron James Right now in his twentieth season. You Have Anthony Davis right now. Why not invest in this right now, banking on Lebron in his twenty onest season? We're at a point now with his age where the

risk is getting exponentially higher with each passing month. He's gonna be, what, thirty nine during the age one season? He'll turn already nine in that December. That's what you're betting on. Is Cap space that you can use when Lebron is thirty nine. I really don't understand that thought process. And, most importantly, now you're bringing Russ to camp, which we

already talked about. Was Insane after everything he said in his exit interview, after everything that transpired on the court last year, with all the toxicity surrounding the fan base and God knows what else that was going on in that locker room. It was already insane. To bring him back, but now you brought in two point guards this summer

that are better than him. Not to be clear, Russ should be better than both of them, but he doesn't defend nearly as well as Patrick Beverley and Dennis Schroeder do. He's not nearly as efficient as Patrick Beverley and Dennis Schroeder are. He is not as good as at basketball right now as those two players are because of his weaknesses in the little winning details of the game of basketball. So yes, Russ should be better than them both in theory,

but he's not. So you're bringing him to camp after everything that happened with two point guards who are better than him. It will probably deserve his starting spot, which means one of two things is going to happen. He's either going to be benched, which will only further extend the toxicity of the situation, or he's gonna be starting over players he has no business starting over. That's what

you're signing up for by bringing him back. All of that for cap space for a week free agency class headlined by a player that is as flaky as anybody in the League and, in all likelihood, will stay in Brooklyn if they have anything near a successful season. That's the type of decision making process taking place with Lakers brass right now. It's something I vehemently disagree with. And Look,

it might all pay off. Maybe Russ goes to camp and is invigorated by the competition between Dennis and Pat and finally embraces all of the things that he never did in his career here. But I find it extremely unlikely and I thought it was a foolish bet on the Lakers part to go that route. I would have flipped him for that Utah Jazz Package, boyamgdanovitch, Malik Beasley and Rudy Gay, or some combination of those role players, knowing that, yeah, you sacrifice a little bit of that

cat flexibility, but that's a sure thing over him. Maybe, and most importantly, this is Lebron's twentieth season. This might be his last truly great season. This is where you have to push your chips in and I cannot believe that they're even considering punting this season for the sake of something that might happen in the future. Under that circumstance,

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sports book partner of the NFL. Juvna with their power rankings today with number nine, the Dallas Mavericks, very interesting team that had a very successful season last year and has made a couple of interesting changes during this off season. We're gonna get right into it. Before we get started, subscribe to the volume's youtube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on twitter at

underscore Jason Lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And, last but not least, if you can't finish one of these and you can't get back over to youtube, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under hoops tonight. So let's talk some basketball. The Dallas Mavericks last year went fifty two and thirty. They lost in five kind of ugly, disappointing fashion in the Western Conference finals to

the Golden State Warriors. Andrew Wiggins gave Luca a nightmare playoff series, the worst playoff series that he's had since he came into this league. UH WE'RE gonna talk a lot about some of the details of that series later on in the show. Um in the regular season there were fourteen and offense and seventh in defense. In this off season the biggest, the two biggest changes from last year's rosters. Obviously they lost jalen Brunson Um to the

New York Knicks. Now that that makes this a little bit tough to project moving forward, because the Dallas Mavericks Offensive System is designed on three ball handlers and there's always two on the floor at any given moment and then they might close with all three, but the ideas is they're constantly spelling each other in the rotation and

so losing jalen Brunson is a pretty significant loss. Now over in Europe, Dennis Shrewder is playing some of the best basketball of his career for Germany so and there's a lot of Intel out there that he will be picked up by an NBA roster pretty quickly after this tournament over there. So My expectation is that there's a great fit here for both sides between the Dallas Mavericks

and Dennis Schroder. First of all, Dallas desperately needs that third ball handler and, second of all, Dennis Schroder in terms of what he could do while he's in Dallas. This is an excellent place to go, especially in a contract year, which obviously is a player who will be signing some form of short, short term deal and needs

to prove himself. This is a great place to go to put up numbers because with the way that Dallas's offense is set up, and we're gonna get a lot deeper into that, Dennis is going to be set up to succeed. He's gonna be operating in a lot of space and the ball is gonna be in his hands and he's going to be asked to run a lot of isolation and a lot of pick and roll. So I think there's a really natural fit there and I think that those are the two sides that will come

to an agreement. So I expect someone like Dennis Schroeder to be a Dallas Maverick, to fill into that role. But for this exact moment in time they're down to just the two ball handlers with the loss of Jalen Brunson, but they did trade for Christian Wood, losing only players who were not in their rotation during the playoffs and

now Christian would. It's tough because he's a super talented forward that can dribble and shoot better than the vast majority of big men that we have in this league and has a great deal of Athleticism, but he's been playing in the losing environments his entire career, and we kind of briefly touched on this topic a lot during this show. But the concept of winning basketball and it's very, very different from just running up and down the floor

and scoring. I tell this story all the time, but when I was a freshman in college I was on a really bad team and I averaged sixteen points a game, had a bunch of big scoring nights, but I wasn't a good basketball player. I was just putting up numbers

on a bad team. And then my worst statistical season was on the best team I played for, and on that particular team I had to learn how to contribute defensively, learn how to contribute in a spot up role, learn how to contribute by running plays correctly and guarding the other team's best player. It was a completely different type of basketball and roll than I had my first year in Duco, even though I was more skilled, even though I was older, even though it was more physically developed

at that point. It's just different doing it in a winning concept than it is in a losing concept. So over the course of the show, when we get to the offense portion and the defense portion, I'll do the best I can to guess how Christian would will impact winning within this winning concept, because it probably won't look

anything like what he did in Houston. I was talking to my buddy rush Um, who covers the rockets, earlier today and he works for ball his life as well, and he was telling me like like the kinds of shots he was taken. They were using him like Kevin Durant, like flying off the screens or bringing the ball up the floor, taking step back threes. UH, he actually shot thirty eight percent on step back three or on off the dribble threes last year, on over one attempt per game.

Chances are he's not gonna be taking a lot of those types of shots with Dallas. So that those are the kinds of things that I'm talking about and we will get into that further in the show. Um, they drafted Jaden Hardy, a scoring guard. I don't think he'll be much of a factor this season. Don't know a ton of about him either, so as the season progresses, if he does get playing time, I'll update I'll update you guys on that. And then they signed Javale mcghee.

Um again. I covered Javale McGee when he was with the Los Angeles Lakers and, uh, he's a solid backup center. Um, different in the sense that he's very up and down. Javale McGee's highs are incredibly high, like incredible dunks. Um a really gifted rollman and who has good hands, surprisingly good hands, and is surprisingly good at finishing around the basket. Defensively, he can be a real problem for people underneath the basket because of how long he is. He's got great

length for the position. But the flip side of that is that he's kind of a kind of a bowl in the China shop. It's not the right word. He's kind of just like all over the place, like it's kind of aloof a lot of the Times. He leaves his feed on almost every single pump fake and we'll get himself out of position. Offensively, he'll freelance every once in a while and try something crazy and it'll look kind of awkward. And ugly. Right that that's kind of

the Javal McGee experience. But the bottom line is he's your classic Rim running center that can play drop coverage on one end and screen and real hard to the rim on the other. Totally fine and serviceable in a backup center role. The big thing that I like specifically there for this defense is last year Dallas's defense didn't really have a traditional rim protector and they had a top ten defense in spite of that. Now there are some other factors at play. That will be interesting to

see how their defense looks this year. But Javale McGee at least gives Jason Kidd an option as a rim protecting center that he did not have in previous years. And then, like I said, Dennis Roder is the guy that I keep an eye on as a signing as we get closer to camp. So their depth chart right now, as it looks at the guard, Luca, I guess you can call him a guard. Um usually I say you are who you can guard, but Luca can't really guard anybody at this point. Maybe maybe he can guard big

players in the post, but that's about it. Uh, Luca, Don Che, Spencer, dinwoodie Reggie Bullock and Frank nickelle Ni Kina, Nilakina, I think I pronounced that correctly. Uh. He played a little bit for them last year in the playoffs, but his inability to knock down jump shots has always been a problem in his career. Very gifted defensive player, though. Um on the wings, Tim Hardaway Jr should theoretically be back from injury this year. Dorian Finney Smith, who's turned

into a really, really impactful three and D player. Josh Green, came through the University of Arizona, similar to uh, similar to Frank Niel Quina. Good Defensive Player, good athlete, but his jump shot just isn't dependable enough right now. And then Davis Paritans, who is an incredibly streaky three point shooter at the UH. As far as bigs go, they got would I'm calling him a big, but they might use him a little bit as a wing this year.

Javale McGee, Dwight Powell and Maxi Kleiba. So on offense, this is an extremely modern pick and roll and matchup attacking offense. I talked about this yesterday with the Miami Heat. But Um, you know, your offensive process and your defensive process needs to be geared towards what your talent is on the roster. You can get yourself in a lot of trouble when you try to inflict your ideologies on

a team if that's not their individual strengths. Right Um, but in terms in a vacuum, if I could pick my personnel, the two systems that I believe the most in in terms of what translates best to the postseason are, on defense, switching everything, which we talked about yesterday with Miami, and on offense, five out, driving kick and the more principle. There, though,

is advantage creation with a live dribble. Uh. The main reason why I believe so much in that is that when you get into the postseason, and we've talked about this a ton on the show, but your your sets don't seem to function as well as they do in the regular season. Not a big shock. There's a whole lot of scouting, you become deeply familiar with your opponent over the course of the two weeks of the playoffs series and Um, teams will find a way to get

in front of your sets. Also, teams tend to switch more in the postseason, which allows them to get in front of screening actions. So generally speaking, in the playoffs

it does become about live dribble advantage creation. That's why a team like Dallas, who, like was fourteenth and offense in the regular season because they didn't get as many easy shots from running sets and things along those lines, that offense translated better to the postseason and that's a huge part of why they were as successful as they were and at times looked unguardable, especially against Phoenix Um

and against Utah. So they they don't like when we look at their numbers there, and off screen actions in terms of total frequency, eighteenth and dribble handoffs twenty four and cutting. They're not running the offenses that you see from Golden State in Miami with a ton of motion and a ton of screens and a ton of dribble handoffs. That's just not what you're gonna get from the Dallas Mavericks.

They were a brute force, spread you out, high, peak and roll at isolation offense and they run it with three creators. They it's your turn, my turn. One Guy subs out, another guy comes in and it's just more and more of the same, and it is a proven playoff offense. I've kind of joked that this team reminds me a lot of the two thousand eighteen rockets. They don't switch as much on defense as the rockets did, but that's kind of like their approach. It's supermodern, can

get ugly at times. It's not the most systhetically appealing basketball, especially to basketball purists who like to see passing in ball movement, but you can't deny its effect of nous. Um I mentioned how they work with the three shot creators and kind of rotate them in and out. Off

of that, it's all play finishers. They either have shooters or roll men, you know with Dorian Phinney Smith and Reggie Bullock, baxically, but you know Davis Bare Time's they're all spotting up looking to shoot, but then they've got, you know, Dwight Powell rolling hard to the rim. They've added two additional role men this year, um in Javale McGee and Christian would, and when we get to the numbers you'll see they weren't as good a pick and

roll team as they were an isolation team. Improving with their role men, I think, will open some things up for them and pick and roll make them a little bit more versatile on that front. Um the the advantages that this type of offense creates, like there's there's a reason why it translates well to the postseason. You know, I can any coach can coach their way ahead of

an offense. Right, like if you drill things enough, especially in a playoff series, and you really get good at covering the specific type of sets and concepts that a team likes to run, you can get in front. But if it's just pick and roll or just isolation, it becomes a simple question of picking your poison. As a defense, you can either opt to send extra defensive attention to the ball handler and make him beat you with the pass, or if you play off and stay home, it's about

that person in their ability to make shots. In that isolation or in that pick and roll. It becomes less about scheme and more about personnel, and that's a big part of why it translates to the postseason. It is. There is no magic fix for isolation with Luca Don chees. If he's going to pick on your weakest defender, it's not like you can coach up that defender to do better and better. I mean you might be able to get him to do a little bit better over repetition

in the series. But the truth of the matter is, if it's he's too small to guard Luca, he's too small to guard Luca and there's no coaching around that beyond throwing extra defender is and Luca happens to be one of the best passers in basketball. So again, like I I appreciate esthetically appealing basketball. I appreciate, you know, ball movement and passing and and and that team game that everyone, that a lot of old fashioned basketball fans love.

But at the end of the day this works and you have to acknowledge it and find the beauty in the process. Like I talk a lot about skill on this show, specifically like little tips and tricks within ball handling and post ups in terms of, you know, how to sell each move or body positioning and things like that. Find beauty in that from their offense and you'll learn

to enjoy that a lot more. The manner in which Spencer, Dinwittie and Luca done do what they do in terms of their offensive skill set, to me is very fascinating. One of the downsides to their specific style of offense. There you know, kind of heliocentric. Uh advantage creation offense is their role players can lose confidence from time to time. They're very they're specialists, you know. Um, they don't have a ton of guys on their team that can dribble,

pass and shoot. Um, there's just a lot of guys that can either shoot or roll hard to the rim. But they're not they don't get a lot of the multiple driving kicks system type stuff that can get a

team in rotation a lot. And more often than not they walk the ball up the floor, Cross half court at Sixteen seconds, take another four or five seconds to get into their pick and roll or to get into their isolation, and by the time Luca or Spencer, whoever it is, makes the pass, there's only like four seconds on the shot clock and it's like you're either shooting that three or you're taking a one dribble pull up, or maybe you can kick one more pass to another shooter.

But they don't. They don't get the multiple driving kick possessions that can really get a defense in rotation. That's one of their weaknesses and as a result, and it's a personnel thing, they don't really have the personnel to do that. But as a result, like you know, look at the warrior series, Maxie Clee, but his shot stops falling. Doesn't have other ways to score, other ways to impact the game, so he loses his confidence and the offense suffers for it. Like that tends to be the case

with this type of offense. Is when the role players are feeling good and knocking down shots, everything's great, but when they start missing, it can kind of snowball from there. And if you look at that Golden State series, man did thinks snowball, especially from the role players. They had some really cold shooting stretches that killed them, not the least of which was that second half of game too,

that they blew Um. So, like I said, twenty seven off screen actions, eighteenth and dribble handoffs and twenty four and cutting in terms of frequencies. So you're not getting any of that. It's all io and pick and roll. They were fifth in ISO frequency, second in ISO efficiency. Luca ran six point three isolations per game, which was second in the League in terms of volume. He also had one point one one points per possession, which is amazing.

There were only two players in the league last year that ran at least five ISOS and scored at least one point one point per possession on them. Take a guess. Luca and Kevin Durant. Spencer Dinwoodie also runs about three isolations per game and was even more efficient than Luca, at one point one five points per possession. He's gonna be slotting up into that secondary creator probably will start for them this year. There were eight in pick and

roll frequency in fifth and pick and roll efficiency. Uh again that I think that will go up in terms of volume with the addition of Christian Wooden Javaial McGee, because now they just have real role threats. Luca ran thirteen pick and rolls per game last year, which was second most in the NBA. He scored zero point nine three points per possession, which is only slightly above average. Again not having a legitimate role man kind of Dwight Pal's an okay Rollman, but not as good as the

two guys they're bringing in. That I think that I think will open things up for him a little bit more in that regard. Spe or Din what? He was also only slightly above average in pick and roll. Jalen Brunson really carried them in pick and roll last year he was in the ninety one percentile and points per possession. So with him coming out, obviously you need someone else in there, hopefully Schroeder, but also the addition of better roll men should kind of make up for some of

that loss. They used to post up a lot when they had Chris Christaps Porzingis on the roster, but they ditched that almost entirely after christops left. Luca is really the only player on the team that will post up at this point. He did it about three times per game last year and was relatively efficient. Nothing exceptional, but a little bit above average. Um, Christian wood ransom post ups with Houston last year. It was slightly above average,

I think, on about two attempts per games. So I'll be interested to see if they dump it down to him in the post a little bit. But I I doubt it because the League seems to be going away from that in general and there's only handful of guys in the league that could do it really well. Um. So I think they'll probably use him more in a perimeter oriented role or as a role man. The efforts ran in transition less than any team in the entire league.

There the fewest transition possessions. This is about Luca strangling the pace of the game. Now there's downsides there, because when you don't run in transition, you don't get easy opportunities that supplement the rest of your offense and, like we talked about with the Miami Heat, especially when you're a team that can struggle to score a little bit in a half court having, you know, handfuls of possessions each quarter where you run out for layups can help

a lot. Now it's about strangling the pace, which is which disrupts the rhythm of the other team. You know you miss a shot, Luca slowly brings the ball up the floor and methodically works the clock down and gets a good look and it hits something, or one of his teammates makes a shot. Then you bring it back up the floor. It's been so long since you had the basketball. The game just feels like it's stuck in the mud. It makes it hard for offensive players to

feel comfortable. So that's the upside, but I wouldn't I wouldn't hate to see, especially with how gifted of passer Luca is and how gifted a rebounder he is, I wouldn't hate to see him do a little bit more of what Nicola Yoke does, and that's look up the floor after the rebounds. Luca can strangle the pace with his dribble. That doesn't mean the role players necessarily have

to walk up the court too. I'd like to see a little bit more of like Dorian Finnie Smith and Reggie Bullock sprinting like crazy up the floor, even a little Javale McGee. He did this a little bit when he was with the Lakers, with Lebron throwing passes up the floor. They're trying to squeeze out a little bit more offense and transition. I think would be a good idea. So let's talk about Christian Wood and how he fits

in here. So again, in in the in this particular type of role with Um, with him being on a winning team, he's not gonna have the ball in his hands as in as an initiator nearly as much as he did in Houston. So that puts him into that play finisher role right. Well, let's take a look at what he did last year and terms of specific shot profile. So he was on wide open threes. That's really good. He was on catch and shoot threes, so bad before we go any further. He's already gonna fit in this

system as a spot up threat. He was thirty eight percent on pull up threes, one point three attempts per game. Interesting in the sense that I don't think he you're gonna want him taking pull up threes early in the offense. But what that does amount to to me is like a late clock threat. You know, Luca goes to a step back with five on the shot clock, doesn't get

enough separation, kind of pump fakes. He can swing it to Christian would and Christian would can hit a step back, you know what I mean, like it's kind of like a rescue possession type of thing. He was in the sixty seven percentile as a rollman. When I was talking to my buddy Rouche, who covered the rockets last year, again it was a waste of my time because of how how much I had to cover the top teams in the League. It was a waste of my time

to watch that much of Christian would. I only watched him a handful of times, so I rely a lot on on on the tape that I've seen, as well as UM people who watched him every single day, like my buddy rouge, and then the data we have on the on the NBA dot com website. But he said that they were actually pretty damn good with Um. With Christen Wood is a roll man, but that he was hesitant to do so. That translates to the number sixty seven percentile. But his volume was pretty low. I want

to say. He was only registering about two rollman possessions per game. So theoretically in this system that translates to something he'll do more frequently. He was also a slightly above average isolation player and a slightly above average post player in terms of points per possession. So what of that contributes to winning environment? Obviously the spot up stuff,

obviously attacking closeouts. Um, his ability to dribble the basketball and his athleticism going to the rim might be able to open some things up in UH in driving kick types of situations. And then also Um, if the post up in isolation stuff translates in terms of the winning environment, it would be interesting to see him as just another

option for advantage creation when he has a great matchup. So, for instance, if Christian would ends up in a pick and roll, getting a switch onto Luca's man and Luca can pull the ball away and throw it down to him in the post or if he you know, even just in transition running the floor, if he gets the right matchup, it might be interesting to throw to him

as a primary initiator. I think you'll find out pretty quickly in the first ten or so games of the season whether or not that's something Christian Wood is capable of doing in a winning concept or winning context. I should say. Um, he's a player that the Dallas Mavericks have never had before, a type of player that the Dallas Mavericks have never had before. So I'm just really interested to see how they end up using him. Defense

was where the Dallas Mavericks were most interesting last year. Again, they were seventh and defensive writing. But their personnel it wasn't very good. Right, like, outside of Reggie Bullock, Dorian Phinney Smith and Dwight Powell, they didn't really have players that were, you know, their reputations weren't that of great defensive players. Most of them below average. You know, Jalen Brunston, Spencer didn't. What do you look at? Donchech, Maxi, Cleba,

all these guys were, you know, Dobvi sparit tens. These were all below average defensive players before, before this particular season. UH, they were. As a team last year they were twenty nine and steals the blocks. So they weren't disrupting anything. They didn't have an interior defensive presence. Like Dwight Powell is a good defensive four, but he's not like he's a rim protector right. Neither was Maxi CLEBA. All of that stuff was true, but they had the seventh best

defense in basketball. How do you do that, you know, and the answer to me is pretty simple. Do you guys remember yesterday when I was talking about the Miami Heat Um? I was talking about how, on offense, they squeeze things out on the margin to improve their offense despite being a weak half court offense. The same goes

for for the defensive end of the floor. I talked about I compared it to football and baseball in terms of like special teams or like manufacturing runs with like, uh, you know, bunting to get a base runner on or stealing bases, sacrifice flies, things along those lines. There's like the core concept of basketball, you know, which is scoring in a half court, five on five environment. But then there's all these ancillary things, defensive, rebounding, offensive rebounding, transition defense,

transition offense, right like Um we we talked. I went over all the different things yesterday. But there are this particular team, this this Um Um, this Dallas Mavericks Defense, despite not having the right personnel, was able to squeeze out and above average defense by all of the little things. So, for instance, they defended the three point line really well, which is just scheming. That's smart. It's math. That's the most valuable shot if you that in layup, so the

most valuable shot. Now, they were a pretty average paint defense, to be expected, but if you guard the three point line and you guard the paint really well, you'll force teams to operate in the mid range and even the in no player in the League really, except for the top handful, is efficient enough in that range to make you pay. So they only allowed ten point nine made threes per game, which led the League. They were eight and free free throw attempts allowed. So they don't foul. Again,

that's coaching. Uh. They were an above average transition defense. Getting back in transition, communicating with each other who's got the paint, spreading out to your shooters after that and they were top ten defensive rebounding team. They secured seventy three of available rebound, available defensive rebounds. So again, like even though they weren't great defensively in the core principles of defense, they were excellent and all these ancillary things.

They had a smart scheme. You know, they guarded the three point line well. They double every uh mismatch. They double their players out of mismatches when that becomes a problem. They rotate really well when things break down by if they don't foul, they get back in transition. By doing those things they were able to squeeze out and grind out a the number seven defense in the league. It's about controlling what you can control. You can't control your personnel,

but you control being well coached. You can control boxing out, you can control sprinting back and on defense and transition. You can control coming up with a smart scheme by paying attention to what's going on around you in the League. Um, the unfortunate reality was, and and this is what I

said all last season. You Mavericks Fans who listened last year we'll remember, as their defense was progressing towards the tail end of the season I kept pointing out the fact that the personnel might end up being a problem in a playoff series against a team that can expose them. Well, golden state just completely put them in the blender. I want to say their defensive rating in the regular season was about a hundred nine points per one hund possessions allowed.

Golden States scored a hundred and twenty point three point points per one possessions. So they're disciplined. All of those things that we talked about just didn't hold up under Golden States motion heavy offense. They fell apart on that front. Now some of this is golden state. Golden States are really unique team. They do things very differently. It's differently than anybody else in the league. So there's not really a whole lot you can do to prepare for them.

And I've talked about this a lot on the show, but Golden State tends to have an advantage early in playoff series because of the fact that what they do is so different and it's not incredibly uncommon to fall down two oh to them. That's what happened and they weren't able to dig out. Let's look at Christian would on the defensive end of the floor for just a second. He was a horrible defensive player in Houston, but it was for a very bad team. He does have the

athletic tools. He's tall, he's got long arms, he can move his feet. The problem is is that defensive habits and you know defensive I Q, takes time to build. So it's just gonna be a really interesting challenge for Jason Kidd and for Christian Wood himself to make that transition quickly, because it's either gonna but Christian woods a good basketball player. He's gonna be in this league for

a long time. My guess is he'll be a very, very good role player at a minimum five ten years, or like not ten years, but five years from now, right like when he's in his early thirties. But the question is, is is it going to take him until then to learn how to be a productive defensive player or is it something that he can figure out in one training camp with Jason Kidd? That's a huge swing factor for this particular season. I'm really curious to see what happens.

The best case scenario for this team is basically everything that happened in the first two rounds of the playoffs. It's modern basketball personified, you know, maximizing things on the margins, slowing the pace down, strangling the game down into a isolation contest where it's like you're trying to go punch for punch with Luka Don Chich in this slow game

that's just stuck in the mud. and Luca, Luca is one of the best isolation players in the League and one of the best pick and role players in the league. So he's going to beat you a lot of the time in that and that's what he did to Utah and that's what he did to Phoenix. But Luca fell apart against golden state. He only shot forty one five percent in that series. A lot of credit to Andrew

Wiggins and the job that he did on him. But in order for them to heat hit their ultimate ceiling, which is holding the Lario de Lario Brian Trophy, and I absolutely think the Mavericks had that capability, Luca would have to remain hot for four series, for sixteen wins. Definitely something he's capable of. He eventually ran out of gas in the conference finals last year. Um in order to reach this ceiling, I think they absolutely have to

sign somebody to replace Brunson. I think Dennis Schroeder is the obvious choice. I don't think they're a contender unless they get that third creator. But I am calling them a contender because I sincerely believe they will get that guy, even if it's not Dennis Schroeder Um Christian. What if ashing wood brings a huge scoring punch and finds a way to fit in defensively? That's a big swing factor

because he's a fringe all star level talent. He's not a fringe all star, he's a fringe all star level talent in terms of what he brings to the table as a basketball player. If all of that comes together, they can win the title. But make no mistake, it's all on Luca. I've described this tear as the the puncher's chance tear, and the puncher in this case is Luca, and if he's not at his absolute best for all

four rounds, they can't get it done. He's the the the guy who holds all the pressure in that regard. Worst case scenarios they failed to find that their creator and they go to it with Spencer, dinwoody and Luca and they lack shot creation all season, their defense takes a step back, just like it did in the Golden State series. Their lack of an interior presence gets them

killed on the glass. Golden State pulled in fifty seven percent of available rebounds in that particular series, although I do think Javale McGee will help on that a lot. If those sorts of things happen, they're certainly at risk to lose in the second round as well, or, excuse me, the first round. Just about every team the rest of the way, their low side is to lose in the

first round. There is no world beating roster out there, and there there, I would say, only four teams, like clippers, Celtics, warriors and Um Bucks, would be like guarantees to win their first round series. But even then injuries could take them out. And when we're talking about worst case scenario, we have to factor in injuries. Just ask the Milwaukee Bucks with what happened with Chris Middleton last year. So for the x factor, what's been the theme for x

factors throughout this whole series? What kind of player have I typically been picking? It's typically been a young player who has a ton of talent, but hasn't quite reached his ultimate ceiling, thus providing a ton of variants in what could happen this season. Well, I'M gonna go with Christian would then, because that makes a ton of sense for that theme right to be consistent. He's skilled in athletic enough to be an all star, but he has to learn how to impact winning, and those are two

completely separate things. I deal with this a lot with young players here in town, especially with the high school kids that I coach. Like it's there's a bridge that goes between being a talented basketball player and a winning basketball player. Um, my friend to Lee booked, I was an all American when I was at uh at Arizona Christian University. He taught me how to win little by a little over the course of my last season in college.

He Uh would take me to these like late night three on three runs at the school and and put me on his team and just just coached me really hard and not on the I was all I was always a very talented basketball player. Six, six, six, ten, winks, Ban, could jump out of the gym, could dribble, shoot all those things, but I was so raw because I started really late and so I'd like hit a tough step back jump shot or make a really nice driving dunk or something along those lines, and and he would never

say anything about that because he didn't care. He already knew I could do that stuff. But like, every time that like I'd rolled to the basket on a screen and roll and get a dunk, but then on the next possession I'd screen and pop. He'd like scream at me and be like, what are you doing? What you just did worked, why would you not do it again? And and over time I would learn like like we would relentlessly go to the same action until they figured out how to stop it. Every time I I made missed,

the defensive box out screaming at me defensive rebounds. How you win games, Jason, you have to get every single defensive rebound, a bad close out, bad defensive possession, whatever it was. Over the course of that uh, that year, in those nighttime runs, he slowly chipped away at me and taught me about the things that make a winning

basketball player. and Um and like I'll never forget that particular year because that was the year that I learned how to be a winner on so many different levels, going from being a score at the Juco level to being a role player at at a alongside to all American guards. I'm one of the best uh and ai a teams in the country like that was where I learned all of that stuff and unfortunately I was able

to pick it up pretty quickly. But that's gonna be the challenge for Christian Wood is how quickly can he pick up on those things, because right now, as any rockets fan will tell you, he's not good at those things. Rockets fans would joke, according to my friend rouge, that every time they'd play a big man he'd have his career year because Christian would a career game. Excuse me,

because Christian Wood was guarding him. He he's lacking in those areas and so it'll be interesting to see how quickly he can pick those up, how quickly can he become a serviceable defender and how quickly can he understand his role within the Mavericks Offense? The closer he gets to that all star level, which obviously he's not that guy, but he's going to be somewhere between where he is now and that level. The closer he is to that level, the Higher Dallas the ceiling is and that's why he's

such a big ex actor. All right, guys, that is all I have on the Dallas Mavericks. That's all we have for this week. We will be back on Monday with number eight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys support and I'll see you guys next week. The Volume